CM launches free drug distribution centre

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Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik Friday inaugurated the city’s first free drug distribution centre (DDC) at Capital Hospital here as an attempt to provide costly drugs for free. The CM had also recently inaugurated the State Medical Corporation which will act as the
nodal centre for monitoring the scheme. It will act as the central warehouse to supply drugs to the district and block levels from where people will avail the medicines. The DDCs will be set up at all
headquarters hospitals across the state. There will also be warehouses at the district level from where drugs will be
procured and supplied. Capital Hospital will house four more DDCs in view of its heavy inflow of patients. In the first phase,
200-odd medicines will be made
available to patients out of 570 drugs
enlisted by the state government in its revised essential drug list of 2014. Drugs for ailments ranging from fever to cancer will be made available in subsequent phases. “The medicines will be made available in pandemic areas. For instance, adequate malaria drugs will be made available in tribal districts,” said principal secretary Arti Ahuja. Prescriptions by doctors will be stored in a digital format at the DDCs in order to avoid corruption. Regular audits of prescriptions will also be undertaken to make sure doctors prescribe generic drugs, said SMC managing director Roopa Mishra. PNN